Tuesday, January 30, 2007

My mom recently told me that I’m lucky because certain areas of my life just fall into place exactly how I need it to without a great deal of effort on my part. According to my grandmother who was disappointed that I wasn’t baptized when I was an infant, Saint Carmen, whose birthday I share would bring me good fortune. According to my mom she wasn’t talking about money just that despite not being baptized (I was eventually baptized at age 11 when I asked to be) being born on July 16th meant that Saint Carmen would look out for me and things would be ok.

As I sit here typing this post at 2:30 AM, suffering from day 3 of jetlag, I wonder if Saint Carmen picked and chose what path she’d help me with from the beginning or if it’s something she choose randomly. There’s a small area of my life where things don’t just fall into place and it happens to be the one area where I just don’t think I have any control over. People may disagree but life and all these years gone by is telling me differently. My life is good, I have my health and my family is healthy so I wonder if I should just be happy with what I have or pray that Saint Carmen will decide to add an additional area.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

That’s how many car accidents (including cars that skidded and ended up facing the wrong way)I counted in a 30 mile radius on the Dulles Toll Road (for those in the urea). A friend and I headed to the Leesburg outlets so I could exchange a pair of shoes I’d bought before the Christmas holidays and didn’t see a drop of snow or even rain in D.C. When we reached the toll road we saw some flurries but nothing major. In Leesburg, an hour from DC the snow was coming down so we decided exchange the shoes and run into one other store before heading home. We were at the outlet stores for maybe 45 minutes and then headed up only to find the highway had accumulated at least an inch of snow. My silver bullet is great and reliable but isn’t a snowmobile so I kept my speed to about 40 mph.

Unfortunately there were a bunch of other Bozos who figured they should keep at the regular posted speed limit and ended up on the side of the road, in a ditch or with a jacked up car. I was anxious to get home, it was after all a snowy Sunday afternoon which means sitting in my pjs watching TV and drinking hot cocoa but despite my interest in getting home quickly I had no interest in dying so I keep it slow.

This is our first snow fall of the winter season and people in the DC metro area are notorious for loosing their minds when it snows. What I don’t understand is why won’t folks just SLOW DOWN! Ain’t nothing at the end of the journey to risk my life or someone else’s for. The folks with the SUVs are also notorious for speeding during inclement weather in these parts; I haven’t read anywhere where SUV manufacturers say they’re safe to drive fast in snow and icy conditions.

Let’s talk about the supermarkets; I walked into a Safeway near my house for Empanada fixings and quickly walked out. The lines were at least 30 minutes long. No way, when I didn’t need to have Empanadas tonight. Armageddon is not here, so I can’t understand why EVERYONE had to be at the grocery store today even though it was snowing. I figure the majority of the patrons lived in the area so that means there are also at least 2 mini market/bodegas/7-11 type stores within a two or three block radius of everyplace in DC proper so there’s no threat of starving to death if folks run out of milk or bread.

I’m hoping for more snow so I can work from home and if that happens I’ll just walk to the local mini market or grocery store if I run out of food.

Monday, January 15, 2007

You ever catch someone from work lying in an email? I asked a colleague to send an email asking for additional information about a move taking place that may affect the budget on my project. The recipient of the email responded that there wasn’t a move and “things weren’t as they seem”. WTF, does that mean? I have no idea. I do know that on Sunday an email was sent by the recipient (I was cc’d on it) stating there would be an upcoming move. Turns out I deleted the email but thanks to the good folks of Google Desktop I was able to pull up a cached copy of the email and forward it on.

My immediate reaction was disbelief; I knew I wasn’t going crazy and remember seeing an email on Sunday about a move. Then I got pissed because for a quick second I thought this lie made me look like an idiot and there’s nothing that I hate more then having egg on my face at work. Then I laughed and remembered who I was dealing with; this guy has a shady rep. Once again thanks to Google desktop I was able to prove that I wasn’t the idiot and am anxiously waiting to read what excuse he’ll come up with to get himself out of this one.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Blogging doesn’t seem to have the same appeal to me that it did when I first started 2 ½ years ago. I love reading other blogs but I’m having trouble keeping mine updated and often times feel like it’s a chore instead of an outlet. I don’t want to give it up yet so I'm taking the pressure off and updating when I have something to say.

I’m 32 years old and my body is breaking down. My cholesterol level is high, I need to work out more and I have an eye drainage problem. Yes, ladies and gents my right eye doesn’t drain properly so every 15 to 30 minutes or so a tear just rolls out of my right eye and down my cheek. I have bruises around my right eye lid from the constant rubbing and for a few days I was convinced I’d developed some type of skin cancer. I went to an ophthalmologist who recommended an eye lid specialist and since specialists appear to be in demand, my appointment isn’t for a few weeks.

Commercial Break:

I’m watching that I Love New York show and WOW, WOW, WOW! How in the world?!?! Where do they find these people? Lawd there’s a dude on there quoting scripture!!!!!! He’s on a crazy VH1 show to win the hand of New York and says he puts god first and starts quoting scripture. That made me laugh.

Back to the program:

If I receive my undergrad transcripts by the 22nd I will be taking my first online grad school class in about a week or so. I’m excited, frightened and very nervous. The class is in project management and will definitely be an asset. It’s not the grad school program I wanted but I don’t have the time to attend a brick and mortar program at this time and figured this course would help me with work now.

Friday, January 05, 2007

I’ve been going up and down the blogsphere sucking my teeth at people who haven’t posted in a while, when I realized I haven’t posted anything since 2006. I’m feeling a bit stressed after being on vacation for 2 weeks. I haven’t taken this much time off in (hmmm since college) and it felt great. Now I’m sick and have a ton of work I don’t feel like doing but hope that this weekend will help me get over this achy, sick, head cold feeling and I’ll feel more like myself.

I spent Christmas and New Years with my mom, aunt, cousin and his family in Brussels. I had a great time listening to some of the same old stories I’d heard over and over through out the years and heard some new and interesting ones that made me think about fate, our paths in life and how one event could change the course of your life. I’d heard that my aunt didn’t like my dad and didn’t attend my mom’s wedding but I never knew why until last week. I’d asked my mom if she was hurt, angry or sad and she seemed to brush it off her shoulders.

My mom and dad meeting in Brussels in the 1960’s seems to have took my mom and her family down a different path that wasn’t anticipated when she and her sister left Haiti in 1964 to study in Belgium. The plan was that they’d get their degrees my aunt in Nursing and my mom in Chemical Engineering and they’d return to Haiti get jobs and settle down with someone from a “good” family. In the meantime my aunt finished her nursing degree applied and was accepted at an Anesthesiologist nursing program in Canada and was all set to go when my mom met my dad. Apparently my grandmother didn’t want her to leave my mom all alone in Belgium with this man (my dad) since my mom was still in school. So my aunt didn’t go to Canada stayed in Belgium and met her ex husband who was Belgian. After 40 years she’s still living there and recently retired. Two years after they married my mom moved to the US with my dad since his entire family immediate family lived in Jersey at the time. She never finished that degree in Chemical Engineering and when I asked her why she said something about being married was overwhelming and when I gave her that are you kidding me look and said “you’d never let me get away with that” she agreed and said hell no I wouldn’t have. She did eventually get an undergrad degree in business.

This sequence of events makes me really think about fate and our paths in life. Sure if my mom didn’t marry my dad I wouldn’t be me or even alive but what if they’d gotten married and she finished the degree she initially started, would they have moved? What if my aunt ignored my grandmother and went to Canada would I have practically lived up in Montreal where she was supposed to live? Would I be the same person? I am, who I am largely as a result of my experiences and believe that slight changes could have played a role in how I view the world I live in.